Like Tears in Rain
by azure feathers
Summary: Finally, they'd made it to New Orleans-but they weren't expecting a massive infected attack as soon as their feet touched the dock. M for blood and guts and pottymouths and all that good stuff.


**Like Tears in Rain**

**A/N: I just do this stuff to make myself happy. |||OTL Huge shipper of Nellis, btw.**  
**First L4D fic, so lemme know what you think.**

**...**

_"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain..."_

—Rutger Hauer, _Blade Runner_

_...  
_

Nick stumbled off of the boat and onto the dock, fighting his hardest not to start heaving. If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was boats—the fishy smell, the endless rocking, the seagulls squawking for hours on end—ugh. As Rochelle, Ellis, and Coach waved off Virgil, Nick struggled to regain his composure.

"Lookin' a little green there, Nick," Ellis said, a hint of mischief twinkling in his eyes.

"Fuck off."

Ellis chuckled and started up the dock toward a nearby road, the rest of the group in tow. Tall, foreboding gates loomed on either side of the road, and to the right was some ammo—how convenient. As they restocked, Coach kept watch.

"This is New Orleans, huh? It's not quite like I remembered it... Bet I could still find some good gumbo, though." Coach chuckled.

Nick groaned. "I could go for just about anything right now."

"I remember when I was little, my mama used to make this great chicken stuff... I don't remember what it was called, but damn, that shit was good. Oh, oh, and my aunt would always—"

"You know, Ellis, the best part of your stories is when they end."

Ellis huffed.

"I don't mean to be a party pooper, but we've got company," Rochelle interrupted, gesturing with the barrel of her shotgun toward an oncoming horde of infected.

"Finally! I was gittin' bored." Ellis wielded his frying pan like a baseball bat and waited for the first one to arrive—and arrive they did. At first there was a bit of a trickle coming from behind an apartment, but it soon became a steady stream. When the infected started coming from the back, too, they knew it was time to move.

Coach scouted ahead while Nick monitored the back, shooting anything that got too close. They managed to make it up the side of an apartment's balcony before the specials came, shots ringing left and right, riddled with the occasional metallic gonging of the frying pan smashing an infected's moldy, disease-ridden head.

A sick, hacking cough turned all heads to the left. "Smoker!" Rochelle yelled.

Too late.

A long, wet tongue wrapped around Rochelle's ankle and whipped her feet out from under her. Before she could blink, she was being dragged back down the broken cement ramp they'd just climbed.

"Damn it!" Coach took a few shots at the smoker, but it was clever—it was hiding behind a pole, where it could just pull Rochelle through the writhing hell of zombie below.

"I've got it," Ellis said, shifting his grip on his frying pan. He started out into the crowd of infected, breaking skulls left and right.

"That is one crazy sonuvabitch." Coach shook his head. Nick laughed weakly, dispatching a Hunter mid-pounce.

"Yeah, but I guess it's alright considering we're in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse—"

"Hey, ya'll? I could use a little help over here!" Ellis called over the noise of the invasion.

"What are you guys doing up there, anyway? Playing cards?" Rochelle asked crankily. She sounded relatively unscathed, and a wave of relief washed over Coach and Nick. Coach maneuvered his AK over toward the other two survivors and gunned down some of their pursuers, helping Rochelle back up onto their perch. Ellis had fallen behind because an infect had grabbed onto his arm and was proceeding to drag him back, bit by bit, into the crowd.

"Get lost!" he said angrily, but his voice was lost in the sound of a low rumbling a street over, getting increasingly louder. The deafening roar of a tank shattered their already less-than-peaceful surroundings, and an ugly pink body crashed into view, accompanied by a set of huge arms and legs like none they'd ever seen.

"Ellis! Get the fuck up here!" Nick yelled, shooting off a few of the zombies at his rear. Ellis pulled out his shotgun, seeing as his frying pan wasn't quite doing the job, but he wasn't quick enough. The tank swung a meaty arm and a black Crown Victoria went flying in a beautiful ark, crash-landing just in front of Ellis. The force of the impact as the car landed and slid across the concrete flung Ellis backward into a metal pole. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Nick realized that he wasn't getting up.

"Damn it. Never send an Ellis to do a Nick's job," he muttered, gunning down a throng of infected and thwarting a Charger's attempt squash him flat. Rochelle and Coach were close behind, but the shriek of a Spitter and the sickly hiss of her green insides flying through the air separated them.

Today was just not his day.

Racing over to Ellis as fast as the body-ridden street would let him and avoiding various pieces of rock flying through the air, thrown obviously because the tank just wasn't getting the attention he wanted, Nick found himself truly scared. There was something short and metallic and sharp-looking—probably a piece of debris from the car—lodged in Ellis' midsection, and he was slumped weirdly.

"Ellis! Hey, Ellis, you alright?" Nick asked, getting down on his knees beside the survivor.

Ellis tried to laugh. "I think I hurt somethin' bad, Nick. I can't feel my legs."

Nick recited every curse he'd ever known and then some.

"Uh—let's get you out of here. Then we can deal with this," Nick said, thinking aloud. But when he tried to pick Ellis up, or at least drag him a bit, such a pathetic whimpering sound came out of him that Nick had to rest him back on the pole.

"Can you move your arms, at least?"

Ellis picked up his shotgun. "Yeah... I'll cover you if you get this damn rod outta my stomach."

Nick wasn't sure that was a good idea, but he wasn't going to argue. "This is gonna hurt." He gripped the metal as close to the wound as he could and got as good a grip as he could from the side and started to pull. The sounds Ellis made then were sickening, but after a few tugs the rod slid out with a big gush of blood.

Shit. Nick fumbled for his medkit and pulled Ellis' shirt up over the wound gingerly. What he saw made him grimace. The hole in Ellis' stomach was huge and gushing far more blood than Nick had ever seen at once, which was saying something—seeing as they were in the middle of the destruction of the entire human race and all. He fumbled with his bandages and pressed them against the wound as tight as he could, ignoring Ellis' squeaks, removing one hand at a time as he wrapped the bandages around his torso. When he was done he pressed both hands to the wound again, but the bandages and his hands were soaked in seconds.

"I don't think a medkit's gonna cure this one, Nick," Ellis said. His voice was raspy.

"You redneck bastard, you've stuck around to annoy me for weeks on end. You've made a commitment. I'm not letting you back out now." Nick's voice was shaking as he tried to insult Ellis every way he knew how, just like he always did, but there was no magic in his words that could cure something like that.

"Believe me, I ain't doin' this voluntarily," Ellis replied, tugging weakly on Nick's sleeve. "Sit."

Nick obeyed, aiming his gun at the tank. "Finish your story about your aunt."

Ellis sighed. "Oh, that? It wasn't anythin' important. It's just she always got real bad gas after she ate my mama's chicken... Kinda like Coach does after, y'know, anything." They laughed in unison.

"Hey, Nick... can you take over for me? My arm's gettin' kinda tired." Nick looked over at Ellis in alarm. The bloody pool had spread around him in a circle, starting to wet Nick's suit. He felt a bit of a pitter-patter on his head and looked up. It was starting to rain. Delightful.

"At least you can wash off your suit." Ellis dropped his shotgun and put his hands against the bandage. His eyes were slightly unfocused, weirdly gray. Nick cursed again. He cursed his mother, he cursed Ellis' mother, he cursed the apocalypse, he cursed the tank, he cursed the infected, he cursed the whole world because goddamnit, the world just wasn't being fair. He tried helping Ellis with the pressure, but he fingers were slick with his blood and his hand slid off.

"Seems like an alright place to die..." Ellis said dreamily, leaning his head against the pole. "You could say I went out in action. Like a hero or somethin'. I bet Jimmy Gibbs junior went out like this. In style, y'know?"

Nick choked back a groan, already having lost the battle to the tears rolling down his cheeks. "Shut up, Ellis. You're not gonna die here. You can have a heroic death elsewhere." He took Ellis' head in his hands, forcing him to look up. "Come on, Ellis. You've got an obligation to annoy the shit out of me, remember?"

Ellis smiled. "Yeah..." His eyes grew dim and his head went limp in Nick's hands.

"Fuck!" Nick let Ellis go and slammed his fist against the pole. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he looked over it was Coach with a chainsaw in his hand.

"Found this in the apartment up there. Think you might need it more than I do."

Nick took the chainsaw and faced the tank, who seemed to be searching for his prey.

"Over here, bastard!" Nick started up the chainsaw. The tank looked at the three survivors with an outraged grunt, shifting its massive body to face them.

"That's right. Come and get it." Nick stepped toward the tank, chainsaw in hand, and grinned.

This would be fun.

...


End file.
